Camera Decision Help

[Dayna]

Hi! I am trying to choose a new digital camera that will fit my budget. I currently have a Kodak z740 and am very satisfied with its picture quality, but am selling it to my sister and want to choose a newer one. I wanted to find out something first. My kodak's output video is only 20fps which is why it looks crappy, but viewable. The newer one's output is 30fps at 640x480 resolution....is this pretty clear?
I am trying to make a decision between the following P series:
Kodak P712
Kodak P850
Kodak P880

Anyone tested any of these or won one? They have 12x optical zoom on them and look very nice! All output video too to 30fps. Its a hard decision for me to make not knowing everything about digital cameras or what to mainly look for in them.
Thanks for any help!

[lordsmurf]

Still cameras that take movies all use crappy quality MPEG-4 encoding. It won't be pretty. It'll be about youtube quality. Or cellphone quality.

[Dayna]

Yes I was told that today. I just went ahead and bought a z710 that is close to my older one but has better resolution. Thanks for your reply though.

[Conquest10]

Although not great quality, they are not as bad a cellphone vids. My camera does quite good video (640x480 and no real blocking) but only 15fps (I think). Pretty good for some artsy type stuff (especially with the Canon lens on it) but not for home video or other uses.

EDIT: While it may have better resolution, you have to take into account that it may use the same size sensor (I'm not sure as I haven't checked it out). The drawbacks to more info being pulled out of the same size chip is sensor noise will be higher.